Anime Review – Shiki – A Japanese Vampire-Story

Genre – Horror
No. of Episodes – 24
Anime released in – 2010
My Overall Grading – 3 Stars

Shiki was a random find. I’ve been combing the anime market for good horrors/psychological thrillers for ages now, and wanted something good with a Japanese cultural flavor. Shiki seemed to fit the bill, even though the romaticised vampire plot-line made me a bit wary, since we’ve seen sentimentalized semi-pornographic versions of it so many times before.

The anime itself was quite good. It sports Higurashi-like traits, in that it is set in a small, almost cut off, town in rural Japan, with its own customs and legends, where, obviously, something strange starts to happen during one hot Summer, when a large number of people start to mysteriously die off. There the story totally deviates from Higurashi however, in that, although interesting and at times, agonizingly full of emotion, the characters in this anime somehow still fail to gain that certain depth of perspective and credibility. The characters in Shiki are thin, cardboard-like and insubstantial. Although we are given sketchy backgrounds of almost each one, we know that the ten-minute background interlude is gifted to us each time, exactly before said character either dies (which does not mean that they do not actively appear on-screen any more) or otherwise falls into some misfortune. The characters never evolve, they never develop, and, alive or dead, their reactions are hardly credible or even probable.

That being said, the art used in Shiki is very pleasing, when portraying kawai characters like Sunako, but totally irritating with bland ones like Kaori – and seriously, what’s with all the stupid bombastic hairstyles? And the BOOBS… Lol. Anyways, the guys are all hot, and I loved Megumi’s fashion sense too ;p

I also loved the fact that in the end, we are so steeped in the lore of the town of Sotoba, that we don’t even see the undead as vampires anymore, but we really and truly perceive them as Shiki. They are blood-thirsty, they are romanticized, but in the end, like their human counterparts, the Shiki just want to live a normal life, they are afraid, they make mistakes, they need help – but no one helps them. The (hot) priest Seishin perfectly persnonalizes the troublesome issue everyone in the village, not to mention we the viewers, feel – the Shiki are parents, friends, husbands, sisters, mothers, loved ones who are just trying to survive – is killing them murder, or is it just self-defence?

Although the characters leave something to be desired, the issues presented by this anime are quite clear and very deep. In the end, I couldn’t, however, give the anime 4 stars as it still had something lacking, but I would still recommend it.

BOOBS, BOOBS and more BOOBS in Anime. And Mirai Nikki! ;p

It is so hard to find good psychologically-deep animes these days! Most of them seem to focus on fan-service – boobs, boobs and more boobs. Nonsensical scenes where the protagonist, surrounded by good looking willing females, always seems to end up tripping on something and falling on someone’s BOOBS, grabbing a BOOB by mistake or inadvertently catching sight of one of the female characters in a changing room, and obviously seeing her BOOBS in all their glory.

And what about all those lesbically-oriented all-female scenes in bath together? Washing each other’s backs and massaging each others BOOBS and what-not. Does that actually happen in Japan??

Anyways, as I was saying before, like many animes, I got side-tracked in all the BOOBS, yes finally I found another good anime. After Elfen Lied, after Death Note, after Higurashi: When they Cry, after Another, and Serial Experiments Lain… there came MIRAI NIKKI.

Or Future Diary, as you prefer.

The anime is not overly-long, being made up of 26 episodes and an OVA. *sigh* And that is another thing, some fairly good animes are just TOO LONG. I really TRIED to watch Bleach, and I liked it too. But seriously, 366 episodes?! Please! I hardly made it through Inuyasha, even though I loved it to bits, and that was ‘just’ 167 episodes!

Anyways, Mirai Nikki has a fairly interesting plot. God is dying and he needs a successor. He chooses a number of people and gives them Future Diaries which predict the future. Thrown into an insane game of life and death, the contestants must kill each other, in order to become the new God. The twist in the plot is that each diary is different and unique, so each contestant needs to understand the abilities pertaining to the other diaries, before s/he can combat and defeat its owner.

I don’t wish to give any spoilers, suffice it to say that we not only get to meet many diverse and mostly insane characters, and made to understand their psychology and perspective, but we also get to face some of life’s most difficult choices and problems too. Issues like child abuse, betrayal, love, relationships, friendship, and self-esteem.

A couple of years ago I started to buy those animes which I deemed ‘worthy’ to be in my collection, in blue-ray. Up to now I have Elfen Lied, Full Metal Alchemist, Death Note and Another. I could not buy Higurashi, as its second season was never released in DVD *sob*. I wonder… shall I buy ‘Mirai Nikki’ too? I’m half-way through it right now. I guess I’ll decide when I’ve finished it.

P.S There are a lot of BOOBS in Marai Nikki too anyways ;p